For those happy few who remember the fantastic iKeyEx substrate that meant that in (jailbroken) iOS 3.xx you could have, for example, 5-row keyboards on your iPhone with user-assignable layouts, all is not lost.

Well, all is not found either, because the latest 5-row keyboard for iOS 4.xx iPhones (not iPads) works as a Winterboard layout, and is therefore not flexible at all yet, but it's a start.

Jira Hiraku, the author, is very responsive - he's already fixed a bug I reported this morning, and has promised to add an alternate layout where shift is numbers, non-shift is punctuation - once he's finished his mid-terms!

And before anyone asks, no, I don't find myself hitting the wrong keys more often using this layout. The old iKeyEx layout was fantastic, as you could choose the punctuations you used most often and line them up along the top row, which sped up typing no end. It won't be possible using this because of Winterboard limitations, but I hope one day the author of iKeyEx can bring a version of that extension into the 4.x arena.

I really miss the functionality of the 3.x-friendly system. Plus that didn't need winterboard, which is just one more thing to get loaded on a 3G's teensy memory. The iKeyEx substrate had a nice small footprint.

It takes surprisingly little time to get used to - it has taken me longer to get used to not having it any more!

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